Chef Ruffy Sulaiman

65 Pages·2017·2.03 MB·English

by  Christin Johnson

The Hilton Effect

By Chip Heath & Karla Starr

©2018Hilton
Introduction
Most organizations celebrating their 100th anniversary might be content to throw
themselves a party, but Hilton opted to hire a pair of skeptical outsiders—business authors with
backgrounds in social science—to write about the company’s effect on travelers, the travel
industry, its employees, and communities around the world. If we sum up the impact of Hilton
across these domains, we can assess the impact that it has had on the world of travel, which we
call “The Hilton Effect.”
We dug into Hilton’s history to examine how their beginnings made them effective, and
how those historical successes have informed their current practices. Hilton is a massive
business, with nearly 900,000 rooms across its 14 different brands, and it continues to grow
rapidly, particularly in China. Because we had to focus, we focused on the core of the
organization; most of the stories come from the company’s original flagship brand, Hilton.
We are not so naïve as to think we are unbiased. Hilton compensated us for this project,
and research has shown that even small, subtle gifts make us more positive about the gift-giver.
So you, savvy reader, should be aware that we may be more positive about Hilton than we
should be, but we don’t think the research predicts any distortion in the facets of Hilton we feel
positive about.
We owe our ability to discuss Hilton’s history to personal tutoring by a wonderful
historian, Mark E. Young, who runs the hotel industry archives at the Hilton College of Hotel
Management at the University of Houston. From the very beginning, he helped us notice subtle
and surprising things in the historical record that were ultimately key to our analysis, such as the
significance of air-conditioning in hotel rooms, a reservation hotline, Lady Hilton, cross-cultural
interior design, and pictures clearly demonstrating economic growth in the neighborhood after a
Hilton hotel arrives. We’re also thankful to those who helped us with the diverse case studies in
this book, including the regional groups that conducted initial interviews.
Because we humans are often overly grand in describing our role in events, we
searched for outside sources to verify details of the case studies and Hilton’s overall impact in
the world. We found that for the most part, Hilton employees undersold. During the second
round of interviews, the stories often emerged as even more remarkable than we initially
suspected. What the team members largely considered to be just another day at work was,
actually, quite extraordinary. We are as excited to tell you these stories as we are surprised at
having discovered them.
Hilton wanted to create this book to understand what aspects of their history helped
them become so successful today, and how they can continue those practices to become better
in the future. But they also hoped it might help the very people they care about: you, their
guests, or their friends in other workplaces.
If you work for a competitor of Hilton, please put this book down now. If you work
anywhere else—especially Hilton—welcome! Be our guest, curious reader. We hope you will
take away something useful.
Perhaps you can learn something from Hilton about providing replenishment for tired
customers, creating work environments that truly engage employees, becoming a focal point in
your community, and the potential impact of creating a company that can stand the test of time.
May all of you be blessed with a workplace as committed as the Colombo Hilton in Sri
Lanka,
Chip Heath & Karla Starr

How Hilton’s Hotel Is like Edison’s Lightbulb
It’s not quite accurate to refer to Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb. Edison
merely patented one component (the long-lasting carbon filament burning in a vacuum-sealed
tube) and combined it with existing inventions (electrical wires and components). But his
contribution turned out to be the missing piece of the puzzle that allowed the whole lighting
system to take on a life of its own.
Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, either—just the missing piece of the puzzle
(assembly line) that was required for the whole thing (combining the engine, brakes, and body)
to become economically viable, galvanize interest, and reach a mass audience.
Considering these precedents, it’s not an outrageous claim to say that Conrad Hilton
invented the modern hotel experience, particularly for business travel. People had traveled for
work before (even Ferdinand Magellan was on assignment from God and the King of Spain) and
hotels existed before Hilton (Christmas has a manger scene because local inns were
overbooked). But we know that Hilton supplied the missing piece of the puzzle because his
brand of hotels was the first to truly take off.
In 1943, Hilton became the first hotel chain to go coast to coast.
In 1946, Hilton Hotels Corporation became the first hotel company to sell stock, and in
1947, it was publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Three years later, Hilton built the first new modern international hotel, the Caribe in San
Juan, Puerto Rico. By 1963, a reporter for Life magazine even wrote “In some countries, like
Spain, there actually has spread an impression that the word ‘Hilton’ is English for ‘hotel.’”
In 2016, Hilton established a presence in its 100th country.
And now, Hilton is celebrating its 100th year.

Conrad Hilton’s firm took off by supplying the missing core of the hotel experience, which
it stumbled upon by catering to a group that Hilton himself knew very well: business travelers.
Hilton grew up in a well-off family—his Norwegian-born father, Gus, made his fortune
selling coal mines—but in 1907, a bank in New York experienced a currency panic that
exhausted its reserves. It closed and spread panic, creating a nationwide cascade of bank
closures. Gus Hilton was left holding loads of stock that he couldn’t translate into cash.
“Suddenly, we weren’t rich anymore,” writes Hilton in his memoir, Be My Guest.
According to Hilton, the abruptly penniless family convened a crisis management
meeting, and concluded it had to use its four remaining assets to stay afloat:
1. Manpower
2. Stock on the shelves of its general store
3. The “biggest, ramblingest adobe house in New Mexico directly facing a railroad
station on a main line”
4. Mary Hilton’s cooking

The best analysis was rendered by 20-year-old Conrad, “This added up to only one
thing—a Hilton hotel.”
Conrad and his brother, Carl, went to the train to hustle for guests every day at midnight,
3:00 a.m., and noon. Their guests were often traveling salespeople because they had the
money for overnight lodging. Three times a day, Conrad would find himself making the walk
from the train station to his family’s home and boarding house, carrying the salesperson’s bag of
samples. While presumably talking about life on the road, Conrad looked for an opportunity to
advertise his mother’s cooking and derive an insight about how to keep his guest happy during
his stay.
Conrad and Carl minded the general store and handled luggage. They woke up sleepy
guests. They slept wherever they could. Gus managed the guest experience; Mary kept
everyone fed.
The family experiment quickly proved a success. A comfortable bed, clean sheets,
home-cooked meals, a general store on location, a prime location near a transportation hub,
and a pair of hustling bellhops? For $2.50 a night?
Very quickly, word spread among savvy salespeople (an old-fashioned version of
TripAdvisor) that there was a new place to stay if you ever went through San Antonio, New
Mexico. “Try the Hilton place.”
Within six weeks, word had spread to Chicago. “If you have to break up your sales trip,”
went the recommendation, “break it at San Antonio and try to get a room at Hilton’s.”
First, it’s worth noting that this original homestead where Hilton learned entrepreneurship
and hospitality was in San Antonio, New Mexico—not San Antonio, Texas. The Hiltons were
pinpointing the needs of business travelers so well that salespeople would intentionally “break
up” their trip in a small town halfway between El Paso and Albuquerque (or, in mathematical
terms, halfway between nowhere and nowhere).
What was so special there? Word continued:
“They serve the best meals
in the West and they have a boy
there who is a crackerjack at
making things comfortable for you.”
In 1919, Conrad Hilton
purchased his first hotel, the
Mobley in Cisco, Texas, which he
described as “a cross between a
flophouse and a gold mine.” The
Mobley catered to oil field workers
in Cisco, but Hilton’s next several
hotels, both bought and acquired,
focused on business travelers
making work-related pitstops
through small towns in Texas, like
Waco and El Paso, during the oil
boom of the early 20th century. In becoming the patron saint of the mobile business class, he
accidentally stumbled upon a recipe that worked for a much larger audience: people want to go
anywhere and feel as comfortable as they do at home.

Twilight Zone Episode #157: Hilton-Free Hotel
To get a picture of how Hilton’s ability to hone in on the missing piece of the puzzle for
business travelers—comforts—has evolved over the years, let’s take a step back and consider
how a Hilton-free world might feel. If you can, call to mind the bizarre imagery and soundtrack
from the introduction to the old TV show The Twilight Zone. It struck us one day how different
the world would be if the things Conrad Hilton created just disappeared from the world (along
with those firsts created by the hotels, like the Waldorf Astoria in New York, which Hilton had the
good taste to acquire). His presence would be noticed by his absence, almost to the point of
scary Friday-evening television.

Submitted for your approval . . .
Imagine a hotel room with no thermostat: the room’s temperature when you walked in is
going to be its temperature all day. It’s a little hot for your liking, so you get a drinking glass to fill
with water. The water is room temperature. So, like the room, it’s warm.
Searching for a quick way to decompress—the flight was abysmal—you dump the
lukewarm water into the sink and hunt for the mini-bar. You keep hunting. No mini-bar.
You sit down on the bed and take off your shoes. Instinctively, your hand darts toward
the TV remote on the nightstand. Nothing. You look over for a listing of the cable channels.
Nothing.
You look around the room for a TV. Nothing.
You’re beat from the endlessly long ride from the airport, which made you miss your
normal dinner time. Wasn’t there a hotel near the airport last time you came to town?
You decide to order some food to make up for your missed dinner, vividly imagining your
favorite comfort food: french fries! Your hand springs to the phone, but the guy who picks up at
the front desk hilariously pretends he’s never heard the term room service. “You mean I’d just
cook your meal and deliver it to your room?” Exactly. “We don’t do that—you can order out.”
He gives you the number of a pizza delivery place.
You decide to go downstairs to sort this out so you can at least grab a Starbucks. But
downstairs, there’s no coffee.
Elsewhere, piña coladas fade from the hands of drinkers sitting beneath umbrellas
around the world.

Unsurprisingly, people want to feel as comfortable on the
road as they do at home. Hilton’s insight? Since the road is extra
exhausting, the comforts of home aren’t sufficient. All of Hilton’s
innovations offer comforts and conveniences that make traveling
easier.
In the pre-air-conditioning era of 1925, the first hotel
bearing the Hilton name proudly featured no guest rooms facing
west, so that guest rooms wouldn’t heat up during the day under
the Texas sun.
In 1930, the Waldorf Astoria in New York City introduced
the concept of room service.
In 1947, The Roosevelt Hilton in New York became the
world’s first hotel to install televisions in its guest rooms.
In 1954, the Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico invented the piña colada.
In 1955, Hilton began installing air-conditioning into every guest room with an individual
thermostat.
Hilton pioneered the concept of the airport hotel when the San Francisco Airport Hilton
opened in 1959. Do you crave staying at an airport hotel? Probably not. Can you see how they’d
be useful when you’re crunched for time? Of course.
When the London Hilton on Park Lane opened in 1963, its guest rooms had two remote
controls: one for the television and one for the radio.
A few years later, Hilton introduced the minibar (thus introducing the work traveler to the
“I can’t believe I ate the whole pack of cashews at 1:00 a.m.” guilt trip).
If you’ve ever bought a Starbucks coffee or a razor at a store inside a hotel, you can
thank Hilton. Perhaps inspired by the value of having the general store next to his family’s
boarding house, Hilton was the first to bring outside businesses into his hotel.
Conrad introduced a central reservation line for guests to book a room at any Hilton
hotel in 1947.
If you’ve ever booked a reservation through a computerized database, you can again
thank Hilton’s 1973 update to that convenience.
Hilton’s initial impulse was to focus on business travelers making work-related pit stops.
Conrad catered to the time-poor by stuffing his hotels with replenishments, like air-conditioning,
mini-bars, TVs, and room service. If you can take a time-starved salesperson far from home
who’s stressed out about closing a deal, and simply stopping over in a New Mexico town
because he’s bone-tired—and make that person feel comfortable in the middle of August—then
you can make anyone comfortable.

Business Travelers: Replenishing the Depleted
“So suppose Conrad did invent the business hotel experience,” a cynic might say. “Is
that a cause for celebration? Hilton chose the most pampered group of travelers, and gave them
additional tools—a generic room, identical across cities, complete with room service and coffee
downstairs in the lobby—so that they never have to see the place where they’ve traveled, at all!”
Wasn’t Hilton just catering to the worst aspects of fearful experience-phobes?
Is business travel a phenomenon worth celebrating or cursing? Travel writers have long
chided this group and its willingness to pay top dollar to stay in their business-class bubble. A
writer for Vogue in 1965, adopted a patronizing tone when describing a Hilton guest he saw
eating breakfast in Turkey:
One morning in Istanbul I was having breakfast in a glass-walled room looking out over the
Bosporus. At a table nearby was an American businessman. . . . He peered through his glasses
at his native [i.e., traditional American] breakfast: fresh orange juice, wheat cakes and maple
syrup, and plenty of good hot coffee. . . . At that very instant, a few miles away in the Blue
Mosque, there were going up calls to heaven which might well have appalled his soul. But did he
notice them? Not he. He felt safe in his oasis.

Decades later, Duke professor Annabel Jane Wharton echoed this sentiment, writing
that in her younger years she “disdained Hiltons as sites of institutionalized inauthenticity. To
me they represented a retreat from the real experience of difference.”
A nearsighted businessman, eating his wheat cakes in ignorance of the broader culture.
Safe in his oasis.
A retreat from the real experience of difference.
Institutionalized inauthenticity.

Those are some pretty vehement and righteous critiques. Retreating from the real
experience of difference runs counter to the whole idea of why people travel in the first place—
we leave home to expand our horizons, to experience something greater than what our daily
lives offer.
But the critic’s view is merely a snapshot without a broader context: the business
traveler’s wheat cakes and coffee just represent the first part of his day. Indeed, breakfast may
be the only familiar part of a day entailing nine hours of work, including a half-day of being
shown around an (alien) business and another half-day of intense negotiations. During all of
this, he’s grappling with trying to remember how to pronounce unfamiliar names and to adhere
to local norms. (Present your business card with both hands! Don’t show the bottoms of your
shoes!) Later, he may be drinking with locals, eating meals with locals, and singing disco at a
karaoke place with locals.
Consider the two travelers below.
Traveler A: someone who dines with locals for breakfast before spending the day as a
flâneur, wandering the city, viewing art, and sipping tea.
Traveler B: a working professional who eats pancakes before venturing to a new office in
a foreign country to make progress on a contract with locals.
Aren’t these just different ways of engaging with a new culture?

Not only is traveling for work as valid a reason to travel as any, it’s also extra tiring. If
you’ve ever snapped at your spouse, dog, Wi-Fi router, or child after a hectic day of work,
you’ve experienced a phenomenon called “depletion,” which is one of psychology’s hottest
research areas over the last two decades. Across a variety of experimental manipulations,
studies show a very consistent result: our mental energy, depleted by self-control, appears to be
a limited—but replenishable—resource. After being asked to exercise self-control for a period of
time, we feel taxed, making it increasingly difficult to stay motivated, even after switching to a
different task.
Our pool of available resources can be drained by any aspect of life. When a supervisor
is constantly emailing us with stressful, time-sensitive demands, ignoring those constant
requests to channel our focus elsewhere depletes our energy, making other tasks more difficult.
After a hectic day of reigning in our disappointment over the missed deadline, or our snarky
comments about the proposed strategy, we have less fortitude to be kind to our own family
when we get home.

Things get tiring when we don’t have a say in the matter and have to keep going.
External demands take their toll. There’s no better natural experiment to examine the effects of
depletion than looking at what happens when people work longer shifts. One study examined
the hand-washing behavior of 4,157 caregivers in hospitals, using radio frequency identification
technology on worker badges to monitor their actual behavior. In theory, workers are supposed
to wash their hands within a minute and a half after they finish seeing a patient. Given the